sendmail, 4th Edition

FEATURE(bitdomain)

Convert BITNET addresses into Internet addresses Deprecated

This FEATURE(bitdomain) is deprecated because its functionality can be handled by the newer FEATURE(domaintable) (FEATURE(domaintable) on page 621). In case you still need to use FEATURE(bitdomain), we continue to describe it here.

Many Internet hosts have BITNET addresses that are separate from their Internet addresses. For example, the host icsi.berkeley.edu has the registered BITNET name ucbicsi. If a user tried to reply to an address such as:

[e-mail]

that mail would fail. To help with translating registered BITNET names into Internet addresses, John Gardiner Myers has supplied the bitdomain program in the contrib subdirectory. It produces output in the form:

ucbicsi    icsi.berkeley.edu

that can be put into database form for use with the K configuration command. FEATURE(bitdomain) causes rules to be included in the configuration file that perform the necessary translation:

R$* < @ $+ .BITNET > $*         $: $1 < @ $(bitdomain $2 $: $2.BITNET $) > $3

Note that this rule requires BITNET addresses to be so identified with a .BITNET suffix. If the address, without the suffix, is found in the bitdomain database, the Internet equivalent address is used in its place. See also the UUCPSMTP mc configuration macro and FEATURE(domaintable).

The form of FEATURE(bitdomain) is:

FEATURE(`bitdomain')

This declaration causes the following K configuration command to be included in addition to the aforementioned rule:

Kbitdomain ...